Convene periodic conferences/seminars to sensitize, familiarize and educate the PIO about RTI

[momita]

The Commission instructs the Respondent to convene periodic conferences/seminars to sensitize, familiarize and educate the concerned officials about the relevant provisions of the RTI Act, 2005 for effective discharge of its duties and responsibilities.

CIC-LICOI-A-2017-190260-BJ--.pdf

[Prasad GLN]

The consolidation of all good court judgments and earlier decisions.

The most important thing that has to be understood from thee comprehensive decision is even when public authorities deliberately provided misleading information stating that it is their record, IC can not proceed against PIO stating that PIO has provided incorrect, false and misleading informatin.

He is concerned with as to whether information was provided or not, and if PIO states that it is his record. So RTI is not the ultimate remedy if PIO prefers to play games with applicants by feeding deliberately incorrect, false and fraudulent information to mislead the applicant. Generally it happens with power rich Public Sector undertakings, who are endowed with plethora of advocates, who charge exorbitant fees for devising such ways in misleading such PSU.

Coming to the point, the pertinent decision part is as follows:

The purport of the RTI Act is to enable the appellants to effectively pursue the said dispute. The question, as to what inference if any is to be drawn from the response of the PIO of the respondent Bank to the RTI application of the appellants, is to be drawn in the said proceedings and as aforesaid the proceedings under the RTI Act cannot be converted into proceedings for adjudication of disputes as to the correctness of the information furnished.”